Bribes, fraud, and breach of trust: Netanyahu indictment submitted to Jerusalem court

Attorney General Avichai Mandellit on Tuesday submitted the indictments against Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to a Jerusalem court.

The move follows Netanyahu’s decision to withdraw his request for parliamentary immunity.

The indictments center on three cases, Case 1000, Case 2000, and Case 4000.

In Case 4000, the indictment revolves around allegations the Prime Minister expedited regulatory changes beneficial to the Bezeq telecommunications company’s owner Shaul Elovitch, in exchange for more positive coverage on the Walla! News website, also owned by Shaul Elovitch.

While Netanyahu was also charged with fraud and breach of trust in the Case 1000 and 2000 investigations, which revolve around allegations Netanyahu received gifts worth hundreds of thousands of shekels from several businessmen, the bribery charges in Case 4000 are the most severe.

Last November, Mandelblit made the decision to indict Netanyahu, claiming it was his “duty to the citizens of the State,” despite the fact that there is no precedent for indicting any political figure on such charges as Netanyahu was indicted for.

Also in November, American jurist and former Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz called on Mandelblit to drop the charges against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

In a brief Dershowitz submitted to Mandelblit, he emphasized: “There has never been a single case in the democratic world in which a public figure was prosecuted, let alone convicted, of the ‘crime’ of receiving a requested ‘bribe’ of favorable publicity.”

“In Israel, the Attorney General is supposed to be outside of politics,” said Dershowitz. “Allowing prosecutors to probe the motives of media and politicians is an extremely dangerous road to go down.”

He added: “I’ve known Mandelblit as a fellow lawyer, and I have enormous admiration for him. I’m asking Mandelblit to do the right thing. And I think doing the right thing would be not to charge for Case 2000 and 4000.”